Shorter Races. Why They Are Good For You.
Throughout the year, there are countless IRONMAN and 70.3 events, ultra-marathons and ultra-long cycling events to choose from and it’s easy to get caught in a routine of competing at long distances only. However, we would encourage you to add a couple of shorter races during your season—even if your “A” races are at IRONMAN or 70.3 distances, marathons/ultramarathons or alike.
Racing shorter distances could be comprised of two Sprint-distance events or two Olympic-distance races or one of each. For endurance runners, we would recommend signing up for a 5K and/or 10K distance event, while cyclists can benefit from short Time Trials. Also consider stepping outside your usual race platform and try your hand at duathlons, AquaBikes, off-road triathlons and/or off road biking to mix up your season..
The are several benefits to racing shorter distances:
It supports great practice and training for your longer events. With the intensities being harder, sometimes much harder, you are able to better recognize your muscular overload, breathing rate and elevated heart rate to better pace yourself for a longer distance. This is a great time to practice calming your brain and will help when you may surge in your longer races, recognizing that you’re not going to fail, but simply adapt to the workload, manage your physiological stress and move on.
Without experiencing the shorter, high intensity races, you haven’t played the right adaptive game to truly manage and succeed at racing longer distances.
And…you’ll be able to recover relatively quickly from these short, fast races and the training benefit can give you a bum in fitness for the upcoming training & longer events on your schedule.
Ideally you want to race an early season and late season short race. This is another reason to consider joining us for the Monterey Bay triathlon in October this year!
Train Smart. Race Smart.